Tomb Kings Update Patch Notes and Reworking Bretonnia

Alongside the release of the highly-anticipated Tomb Kings, a small free update to one of the main Old World races will be added to the game. In this article, Senior Designer Eva Jobse will tell you all about it –

At Creative Assembly, we’re constantly evaluating our old content, and with Mortal Empires it is important to us to evaluate Warhammer 1 factions as well. With the release of Warhammer II, the Vampire Counts saw a massive overhaul to their building tree, the Empire gained some additional buildings and three new technologies, the Greenskins and Wood Elves got new buildings, and most races got access to a few more legendary buildings. The Reprisal Update added the Legendary Lord skills and campaign bonuses from Warhammer 1’s Foundation Update, and gave all Old World lords and heroes access to the desirable immortality skill from Warhammer II. Bretonnia felt a little left out however, so this small update specifically affects them.

One thing that was very noticeable is that the Bretonnian tech tree relies heavily on race-specific upgrades, and all the targets of these technologies were Old World factions only. With the New World adding many new races, it was only fitting to add some technologies specific to these new races. In addition, we noticed that Bretonnia doesn’t have many unit upgrades in the technology tree, making them fall behind a bit when other races start to unlock their general unit upgrades in the middle game. We addressed this issue by adding a whole new section to the end of the tech tree that mostly includes unit upgrades for men-at-arms, archers and knights of all sorts.

Let’s take a look how all of this comes together:

As you can see, the Bretonnian tech tree has been seriously beefed up, with 20 additional technologies added on top of the existing 32. Quite handy with the extended campaign length of Mortal Empires. Five of the new techs focus on the New World races in some way. On the far right side, a whole new section has been added as well, which contains a mix of unit buffs and buffs specific to certain types of buildings.

Let’s take a look at some of these new techs in detail…

It seems the awakening of the Tomb Kings has not gone unnoticed in fair Bretonnia, and King Louen will not suffer their shenanigans for much longer…

Other technologies are not so specific, but rather improve the stats on various types of units:

…Such as Steel Furnaces, part of a series of techs upgrading all Knight units.

Additional economy and building upgrades are also present and aren’t exclusive to Farms and Industry buildings anymore…

The Hay Stores upgrade, for example, makes it much easier and faster to set up a base of operations in newly conquered lands.

On the character side, we’re very happy that the unique lord skills of the Warhammer II Legendary Lords were well-received. The Reprisal Update added some for most Old World races already, but Bretonnia was one of the factions still left out. As much as we wanted to change a lot of the skill trees to make them unique, we had to be careful here, as moving or changing existing skills will break people’s save-games and make spent skillpoints disappear. So in the end, we decided to add 4 new skills for each of the Bretonnian Legendary Lords on top of what they already have. Each are specific to the areas the characters are famous for. Here’s a quick peek at Louen’s batch:

But that’s not all. One frequent bit of praise for Warhammer II is that there’s legendary buildings almost everywhere, making each province unique. We already added a few of these to the Old World with the release of Mortal Empires, such as a certain famous brewery near Blackfire Pass, the Blood Keep in Nuln and the Fortress of Merovech in Moussilon, but there’s always more we’d like to add. So with this update we added 4 more legendary buildings to the Old World. These are:

Peaks of Parravon (different versions for Bretonnia, Wood Elves and High Elves). Parravon is a mountainous dukedom famous for its Pegasi and other roosts of various flying creatures, and this building provides a boost to these kinds of units.

The Forest of Laurelorn (different versions for Wood Elves, High Elves, Dark Elves, Empire and Bretonnia), in Salzenmund. This ancient enclave of Elves has been holding out in the deep forests of the Empire since the War of the Beard, providing a potential source of warriors for Elf races, or a potential trading asset for the human races.

Oathgold Mine (different versions for Dwarfs, Greenskins and Skaven) in Galbaraz. A source of the purest gold lies deep beneath the Badlands and Dwarfs go to great length to recover it. Other deep-dwelling races may beat them to it, however.

Ruins of Mourkain (different versions for Vampire Counts and a certain Tomb King faction) in Galbaraz. Mourkain was the capital an ancient kingdom that practiced Necromancy, later usurped by what we now know as the the Strigoi vampires. It once occupied most of the Badlands. Some ominous ruined crypts still exist…

We hope you’ll enjoy everything the new release has to offer and will continue working hard to make Mortal Empires the best grand strategy experience out there.

TOMB KINGS UPDATE

After millennia sleeping beneath the sands of Nehekhara, Settra and the Tomb Kings rise again, to rebuild their empire anew! Those who don’t own the Rise of the Tomb Kings campaign pack will of course encounter them under AI control over the course of their Eye of the Vortex and Mortal Empires campaigns.

Also available is Tretch Craventail, Warhammer II’s first free Legendary Lord. He exemplifies the Skaven qualities of underhandedness, furtiveness and sublime guile, and he occupies a unique starting position up in Naggaroth. You can download him free from Steam’s Warhammer II page extra content listings.

To accompany Settra, Arkhan, Khalida, Khatep and Tretch, we’ve made a number of overhauls to many campaign and battle features in Warhammer II, including many battle and campaign rebalancing changes to improve the Mortal Empires experience.

In addition, Bretonnia has seen an extensive overhaul, with new skills for their Legendary Lords, a plethora of new technologies, and legendary buildings in specific settlements to more closely integrate their lands into Mortal Empires.

This update is applied via Steam auto-update to your Total War: WARHAMMER II client when Rise of the Tomb Kings launches.

Bretonnia additions:

New skills for Louen Leoncoeur: Fount of Honour, Respected by All, Clarion Calls and Exemplary Conduct

New skills for Alberic de Bordeleaux: Lead from the Front, Coastal Expansion, Shipping Lanes, Appoint Reeves

New skills for the Fay Enchantress: Beacon of Devotion, Sacred Duty, Lady of the Land, Secrets of the Otherworld

New Bretonnia technology: Secure Shores Decree

New Bretonnia technology: Sewer Cleaning Decree

New Bretonnia technology: Desert Purge Decree

New Bretonnia technology: Overseas Diplomacy

New Bretonnia technology: Support Religious Errantry

New Bretonnia technology: Encourage Fanaticism

New Bretonnia technology: Temple Tithes

New Bretonnia technology: Commission Carpenters

New Bretonnia technology: Longer Spears

New Bretonnia technology: Professional Fletchers

New Bretonnia technology: Siege Engineering

New Bretonnia technology: Registered Draft

New Bretonnia technology: Hay Stores

New Bretonnia technology: Farriers

New Bretonnia technology: Blinker Hoods

New Bretonnia technology: Improved Smelters

New Bretonnia technology: Glazing Kilns

New Bretonnia technology: Steel Furnaces

New Bretonnia technology: Master Swordsmiths

New Bretonnia technology: Regular Tournaments

New legendary building in Parravon for Bretonnia, High Elves, Wood Elves: Peaks of Parravon

New legendary building in Salzenmund for Bretonnia, Empire, Wood Elves, High Elves, Dark Elves: Forest of Laurelorn

New legendary building in Galbaraz for Dwarfs, Greenskins, Skaven: Oathgold Mine

New legendary building in Galbaraz for Vampire Counts and a Tomb Kings faction: Ruins of Mourkain

Old World Legendary Lord Trait Updates:

Karl Franz:

+10 diplomatic relations with Empire Provinces

+2 Leadership

Azhag:

+15% Leadership Aura Size

+8 Leadership Aura Effect

Grimgor:

+6 Leadership for Black Orcs in the army

+5 Armour for Black Orcs in the army

Thorgrim:

+15% Leadership Aura Size

+8 Leadership Aura Effect

Archaon:

+10% Physical Resist for Chaos Knight units in the army

+25% Razing income

Bug Fixes and Improvements

Headline improvements:

Rebalanced the Grand and Vortex campaigns to reduce Dwarf supremacy.

Improved ‘Dropped Orders’/units responsiveness during battles.

Improved Skaven units in auto-resolve.

Added a check-box to the army panel in campaign, so when end-turn notifications are disabled, the notifications for the selected army will still be enabled.

Battle AI is now less inclined to use deep unit formations (e.g. 5 units deep) and will use more varied and wider formations where appropriate.

Campaign Battle difficulty modifiers are now applied to the AI correctly.

Battle AI is now less likely to clump when attacking a high Combat Potential unit or Lord, which used to make them easy to kill with ranged units or by flanking the clumped army.

Improved the Battle AI outflank analyser to check the number of entities currently in the unit, rather than the initial number. This will prevent the Battle AI from attempting to outflank an already engaged unit and surround single entity units under certain conditions.

Old World Legendary Lords traits and Bretonnia updates, see above for details.

Technical and Performance improvements

General

Fixed a bug where the Campaign Map would flicker when the player minimized the game with ALT+TAB while changing graphics settings.

Fixed a crash when switching between maximum graphics settings and the “out of the box” “high” settings on AMD RX-480 GPU while running the game in DirectX12 (BETA).

Added more exit points to some battle maps so units rout in a better direction.

Routing units are no longer able to attack their pursuers.

Improved how the “Soul Stealer” special ability miscasts.

Fixed a bug where Hell Cannons would shoot over the top of their target with certain map topography.

Improved cases in Chokepoint battles, where the Battle AI would approach the choke point but not engage with the enemy on the other side of it, or stand still on the other side of the choke point and receive missile damage.

Improved the responsiveness to attacking enemy units on walls when defending a siege battle.

Improved the Battle AI in the situation where a sieging army has breached a wall with towers, and then attempted to exit the settlement back down the siege towers when a gate was closer / more accessible.

Fixed a bug where the Steam Tank fatigue would continue to rise when it sat idle.

Alastair: The White Lion can no longer be dismembered (because he’s a unique Hero).

When in dispute with a hirsute brute, apply the boot with a firm DOOT DOOT.

Improved the collision on the Squiggly Beasts battle map and fixed some floating rocks.

Speeded up the Helblaster fire animation.

Fixed a bug where the player could put a unit into “Rampage” during a battle, but then break the command by issuing a movement order before they rampage.

Fixed cases where Rogue Army Great Cannons couldn’t fire in battles.

Improved the accuracy of Chaos Hellcanons.

Added collision to the fallen Dwarf statue in the middle of the East side of the Death Pass Deep Battle Map.

Movement speed is no longer capped in Laboratory mode.

Fixed some instances where Battle AI would not attack when it was clearly in their favour to do so.

Fixed a floating water plane in Hel Fenn battle map.

Fixed an issue where some Wood Elves projectiles would always fall short of their target within Laboratory mode.

Fixed an issue where an army could stand on top of mountains when sieging Mount Arachnos.

The Corrupter of the Shadowgrave effect will now correctly die out when the enemy Beastlord Lord has been killed in the Horn of the Wild Quest Battle.

The enemy Beastmen Lord will now show correctly within the Horn of the Wild Quest Battle.

Units can no longer be deployed inside a cliff on The Night Glens map.

Units can no longer be deployed inside a cliff on the Glade of the Lost map.

Units can no longer be deployed inside a cliff on the Erengrad Siege map when attacking.

Units can no longer be deployed inside a cliff on the Zoishenk Siege map when attacking.

Usability Improvements

General

Removed the incorrectly listed “Life-Leeching” skill from the “Loremaster of Hoeth” unit page in the Game Guide.

Traditional Chinese subtitles now work with UI scaling above 100%.

Fixed some instances of inconsistent voice acting.

Fixed the preview images for user generated Custom Battle maps.

Fixed the tool-tip on the SSAO option in the Advanced Graphics settings.

Brightness and Gamma sliders can now be seen to take affect in the game’s front end.

Fixed a typo in Czech in the Dragon Cloak of Fyrskar quest description.

Campaign

In Multiplayer head to head Vortex Campaign, when both players gain ritual currency at the same time, the currency “Gained this turn” value on the ritual bar tool-tip will no longer be doubled (/ won’t show both players currency gained).

The text for Epilogue and Event will no longer appear too long to fit on the screen in certain resolutions, and will scroll when necessary.

Fixed the subtitles in the Empire factions’ Grand Campaign intro movie in Turkish.

The name of the Chrace region of Ulthuan is now localized in Spanish (called “Cracia”).

One of the positive effects of the Temple of Mist (reduces the movement range of local enemy armies by 20%) is now correctly coloured green instead of red.

Fixed the “Know More” link on the Menace Below ability, when mentioned by the advisor.

Fixed the localisation for some Vortex Campaign regions in Czech.

When multiple campaign cutscenes are queued to play subsequently, pressing [Esc] will now skip all of the cutscenes rather than just the first one.

Legendary Lord conversational voice over is no longer positioned in 3D space, so it can always be heard, if the player moves the camera.

In Multiplayer Campaign, when one player attacks a settlement and opened the pre-battle panel, and another player re-enforced them, the first players pre-battle panel would reset. This has been fixed.

Fixed a harsh edge in the snow texture, displayed in the pre-battle screen in The Palace of Ruin region.

Fixed a lighting issue where a shadow was being cast in the northern area of the Qatar region without an obvious caster.

Fixed an inconsistency with the trade icon for “Known Factions” between the Diplomacy panel and the drop-down list on the right of the campaign HUD.

Corrected some mistakes in the Polish advisor voice over during fly-bys.

Predicted income now updates when, for example, disbanding a general to remove his upkeep cost.

Improved how text wraps / fits on the Quest Panel.

Fixed a link on the “How They Play” text for Vlad von Carstein

The movement range display (indicating how far an enemy lord at sea is able to attack) is now more accurate.

The Start and End battle options for Queek Headtaker are now displayed the in correct colour (blue).

The Reward for completing the “Stave of Ruinous Corruption” quest is no longer repeated on the “Quest Successful!” message.

Hero and army unit icons no longer remain on land once the army has embarked into the sea.

The Fay Enchantress (Bretonnia) doesn’t bob around so much in the campaign porthole.

The “Attitude” displayed during the campaign End Turn sequence now correctly represents the players’ attitude towards the faction instead of the faction’s attitude towards the player.

Fixed where the text in the Rites window said that the player didn’t have enough warpstone to perform a Rite, which costs zero warpstone.

The amount of warpstone on the Settlement information tool-tip when playing as Skaven is now more frequently updated.

Fixed the technologies listed in the Mortal Empires objectives panel in Co-op mode.

When starting the Mortal Empires campaign as Skarsnik of Crooked Moon, or Wurrzag of The Bloody Handz, the correct Greenskins loading screen will now show up instead of the Dwarfs Loading screen.

Fixed a Multiplayer Campaign bug where the number of turns played would sometimes be displayed incorrectly when loading a saved game.

When a player in a Multiplayer Campaign is in the building browser and the other player, who is using a Horde faction, moves a lord the game will no longer show a broken version of the other players’ Horde building browser.

Stopped the Grey Seer lord from moving around so much on the campaign map when placed into Raid Stance.

Fixed an issue when a previously loaded race’s music could play when loading a save from another race.

Improved some areas of the shroud on the Vortex map which were incorrectly removing terrain.

Karl Franz’s idle animation on the campaign map has been visually improved.

Fixed some instances where tooltips were not displaying correctly for some buildings within the “Damage Buildings” panel.

A war declared event message is now displayed when an enemy’s ally joins the enemy in war against the player.

Changed an incorrect reference to Morale to Leadership in one of the Dwarven naval traits.

Fixed a typo in a Dwarven greeting in diplomacy. Grudge narrowly avoided. Phew.

(The inconsistent damage output of this weapon was very fitting for the faction, but not the most fun to play with. More shots per minute, higher accuracy and less damage make it a bit more predictable while reducing the benefit of using manual fire mode.)

(Projectile damage on the grenades is a secondary factor as most of the damage comes from the explosion. The damage buff here merely improves the overall damage output against larger unarmoured targets, making the unit a bit more versatile.)

(The overall goal of these changes is for the Varghulf to be able to spend more time in combat / cost less cycle-charge micro. Fewer but stronger attacks per minute make the Varghulf less susceptible to loss of vigour.)

Corpse Cart: -100 mp cost

Grave Guard (GW): +3 CB

Terrorgheist: +15% breath attack damage

Dragon mounts: +100 cost

Abilities:

Slightly reduced durations for physical resistance buffs.

Small balance tweaks to improve abilities that affect melee damage.

Added wind-up times to abilities that with a damage component to give players a chance to react.

Tormentor Sword no longer needs to be in melee to recharge. Duration reduced considerably.

Max 3 uses on Prey of Anath-Raema.

Max 2 uses on Effagee of da Git.

Abilities that grant Full Hide and Unspottable now last longer.

Abilities that modify morale positively last longer.

Cold-Blooded: doubled duration, halved healing per second to make debuff more meaningful.

Flash Bomb (Grombrindal): rebalanced as a tier 2 ability.

Grombrindal Has No Fear: is now free in custom and automatically on Papa Grom.

Warpbomb and Dark conduit: reduced damage by 13%.

Mark of KhorneFlakes: Changed to common, cost reduced to 81.

Hold the Line: Changed to common, cost reduced to 81.

Removed max targets 3 from Chaos Tomb Blade.

Spells:

Adjusted recharge times. Tier 1 spells have around 20% longer recharge times and tier 3 spells have 20% shorter recharge times on average.

Soulblight & Upgraded power cost -1

Dweller’s Below & Upgrade power cost -2

Piercing Bolts of Burning changed to fully armour-piercing and increased projectile damage to increase damage against high hit point entities (and overkill basic infantry). Think of the spell now as an elite-killer.

Flame Storm: increased radius to 10m. Adjusted damage down to balance vortex to new radius.

Flame Storm Upgraded: Replaced radius increase with more damage.

Fate of Bjuna: +1 power cost.

Savage Dominion: Summoned Cygor unbinds 20% faster.

Plague: -1 power cost.

Plague Upgraded: -2 power cost.

Modding

Added functionality for modders to dynamically load scripting mods to avoid mod conflicts with these types of mods.

Technical Details:

You can now place a “mod” folder inside any of these 3 pack file directories:

script/campaign

script/campaign/main_warhammer

script/campaign/wh2_main_great_vortex

Placing a .lua script file inside a folder named “mod” in any of the above folders will have it be loaded and the game will attempt to run any function inside the script file that has the same name as the script file.

Examples:

Creating a script file in this path “script/campaign/wh2_main_great_vortex/mod/mymod.lua” will have this script file be loaded when in the Vortex campaign, the game will then execute a script function inside this file that is called “mymod” if it exists.

Creating a script file in this path “script/campaign/mod/cool_mod.lua” will have this script file be loaded when in any campaign, the game will then execute a script function inside this file that is called “cool_mod” if it exists.